A number of drivers from the trucker convoy protest made their way to a nearby private Christian school Thursday to show off their big rigs to the children.
Several popular convoy livestreamers filmed themselves and young students at the Baptist school in Hagerstown, Maryland—where the ill-defined trucker protest has made their homebase for the last few weeks—climbing around their big rigs and blaring horns.
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“Oh, these are little kids!” said one of the livestreamers upon rolling up. “I thought it would be teenagers and stuff, but these are kindergartners and such.”
The truckers quickly led the children in chants of “Freedom!” as tinny renditions of “It’s a Small World After All” and “Jingle Bells” played over a PA system.
Convoy co-organizer Mike Landis announced plans to stop at the school at their daily meeting on Thursday morning. “This gentleman has organized some trucks to go over and hang out with the kids,” Landis said. “They’re gonna go over and pay a visit to those kids.”
The children were given tours of the trucks and honked the horn, with a long line of kids waiting to get inside the big rigs.
“You’re on YouTube now, you’re famous!” one of the streamers told the kids.
A livestreamer trucker who goes by “Sasnak” and has 126,000 subscribers, videoed kids as they clambered into his truck and pulled the horn. “We watch you on YouTube!” one exclaimed.
While several of the truckers, including some other f the well-known streamers, attended the school, more rolled right on by into yet another day of looping the Beltway around Washington, D.C. Many of the interviews the livestreamers conducted with the teachers, students, and parents in the parking lot were drowned out by the cacophony of truck engines, horns, and jake brakes.
“We’ll go cover the guys at the school, give you guys a little different content… if it’s OK with the school,” said one livestreamer. “It’s an iffy-iffy situation because a lot of times you gotta get permission from parents before and all that.”
After the children went back into school, the livestreamers continued to chat in the parking lot with parents and other participants about various conspiracy theories.
The truckers have been using the Hagerstown Speedway parking lot as a staging ground since March 4. The group, a copycat of a Canadian convoy from earlier in the year, is protesting vaccine mandates and aiming to get the COVID-19 emergency declaration rolled back. Those attending have a wide number of grievances, however, including stopping vaccinations and releasing people arrested on charges relating to the Jan. 6 riot.
At the Thursday morning drivers meeting, organizers called up a member of the crowd who said she was a nurse and read off an anti-vaccines speech.
“The people I work with know me as the ‘psycho ivermectin nurse,’ and my husband sometimes jokes and asks if I ‘want a foil hat’ lovingly, and my nurse counterparts in North Carolina yell at me,” she said in her speech.
Organizers have said well-known anti-vaccine figures are expected to speak at the staging ground this weekend. While their numbers are falling, organizers are telling their supporters to “not lose faith” as more convoys are on the way to bolster numbers.
Livestream viewers appeared divided on whether the trucker’s impromptu visit to the school was appropriate. “I mean I think it’s great, but I certainly wouldn’t let my kid ride with a stranger,” one person remarked. “It’s just not normal normalcy,” commented another. But some felt differently.
“When you take your kids to the carnival, you trust the ride operator to take care of your kid. He’s a stranger,” one person wrote. “These truckers are (the) best people out there. I would surely allow my child to ride with them.”
“Freedom rings in the laughter of children,” someone else added.
